Brotherly love?

Shah Abbas and Jahangir had a complex relationship.  There was an ongoing dispute over the key southern trade centre of Kandahar; but both men frequently professed their “brotherly love” (click here and here for earlier blog entries about jewel gifts), whilst at the same time engaging in more or less petty insults – always dressed up in fine words.

Jahangir, for example, once sent to Iran and Constantinople for jewels and other curiosities.  When Shah Abbas checked the request-list, he declared that good turquoise from Nishapur and mumiya (bitumen) from the Isfahan mines were not to be bought. A letter containing “many, many expressions of friendship” was sent off to Jahangir – along with six bags of “turquoise earth” and some bitumen. Only . . the turquoise earth included not a single stone “worthy of setting in a ring”, even though Abbas wrote from Mashhad, near the turquoise mines at Nishapur. The bitumen, usually considered a wonderful remedy, was equally disappointing – failing to heal the broken leg of a chicken.

Then, in 1618-19, Jahangir’s (Sunni) Ambassador, Khan Alam, was forced to wait in the Shia hothouse of Qom, while Abbas spent the summer in the cooler area around Qazvin. Khan Alam was afforded impressively ceremonial entries into both Qazvin and Isfahan, but Abbas – under the guise of friendliness – laughed as he slapped the ambassador hard and repeatedly on the back, pulled his ears, and loudly called him an “old cuckold”.

In return, Jahangir had several pictures painted showing himself with – and superior to – his “brother” Abbas.

The Persians certainly had the last laugh, though. The female camp-followers of the Safavid army led the walkover of Kandahar in 1622. Abbas then sent a letter to Jahangir including many good wishes for “his brother dear as life” and explaining that he had only decided to go hunting near Kandahar so the agents of his distinguished brother might entertain him. Unfortunately, the Governor of Kandahar had showed “obstinacy and a rebellious spirit”, so the Shah had been compelled to take the fort. Of course, Abbas wrote, “between you and me there cannot be trouble, There can be nought but love and trust”. Abbas closed with a request that Jahangir should proclaim that Kandahar had been freely given to the ruler of Persia.

And the insulting pictures were part of the booty captured and taken to Persia by Nadir Shah in 1739.